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Early Saturday, Picnic, certainly one of Russia's hottest heritage rock bands, revealed a message on their web page on Vkontakte, one of many nation's largest social media websites: “We’re deeply shocked by this horrible tragedy and mourn with you. Let's have a good time.”
The evening earlier than, the band was scheduled to carry out the primary of two sold-out live shows, accompanied by a symphony orchestra, on the Crocus Metropolis Corridor in suburban Moscow. However earlier than the picnic took the stage, 4 gunmen entered the large venue, opened hearth and killed a minimum of 133 individuals.
It seems that among the picnic's personal staff have been additionally among the many victims. On Saturday night, one other notice appeared on the band's Vkontakte web page stating that the girl who ran the band's merchandise stall was lacking.
“We aren’t ready to consider the worst,” the message mentioned.
The assault on Crocus Metropolis Corridor has drawn renewed consideration to Picnic, a band that has offered the soundtrack to the lives of many Russian rock followers for greater than 4 a long time.
Cultural historian Ilya Kukulin of Amherst Faculty, Massachusetts, mentioned in an interview that Picnic was one of many Soviet Union's “monsters of rock”, whose songs have been impressed by traditional Western rock acts, together with David Bowie, and a number of other Russian types.
Since releasing their debut album, “Smoke”, in 1982, Picnic – led by the band's vocalist and guitarist Edmund Shklarsky – have grown in reputation, regardless of its music typically being gloomy with Gothic lyrics. Kukulin attributed this partly to the group's ingenious stage present.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the band started performing with thrilling gentle shows, particular results and different progressive touches, Kukulin mentioned. At one time within the Nineties, the band's live shows included a “residing cello” – a girl with an prolonged string stretched round her. Shklyarsky would play a solo on the strings.
This month, the band launched a brand new music – “Nothing, Worry Nothing” – on-line with a video displaying the band performing stay in entrance of an enormous display with consistently altering animations.
Kukulin mentioned that, not like a few of its friends, Picnic was “by no means a political band”, though this didn’t cease it from changing into concerned in politics. Within the Nineteen Eighties, Soviet authorities banned the group – together with many others – from utilizing recording studios, whereas Soviet newspapers complained in regards to the group's lyrics, together with a music referred to as “Opium Smoke”. , which authorities noticed as encouraging drug use.
Lately, a few of Russia's most distinguished rock stars have left their nation, fed up with restrictions imposed on freedom of expression by President Vladimir V. Putin, together with routine crackdowns on music festivals. Picnic benefited from that exodus, Kukulin mentioned, as a result of the band had fewer rivals on Russia's heritage rock circuit.
Kukulin mentioned that not like some composers, Shklarsky didn’t act as a booster for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nonetheless, Ukrainian authorities have lengthy banned Picnic from performing within the nation as a result of the group has performed live shows in occupied Crimea. In a 2016 interview, Shklarsky mentioned he was not fearful in regards to the ban.
“Politics comes and goes, however life stays,” he mentioned.
Kukulin mentioned that among the many songs on Picnic was “To the Reminiscence of Harmless Victims” – a observe that might be interpreted as being about those that have been politically oppressed underneath communism. Now, Kukulin mentioned, many followers have been listening to the music in a brand new means as a tribute to those that misplaced their lives in Friday's assault.